"The Rarest Of The Rare"

2000 Fender Marauder Type 2 (FRED STUART).

Built by Master Luthier Fred Stuart specially for the Winter 2001 NAMM Show, this incredibly rare, 13 3/4-inch-wide Marauder Type 2 weighs 8.70 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25.50 inches. Two-piece alder body, one-piece maple neck with a nice thick profile and an African slab-rosewood fretboard with 21 original medium frets and inlaid clay dot position markers. Headstock with "Fender" transitional logo in gold with black trim. On the back of the headstock is a small oval decal with "Custom Built / Fred Stuart / Fender U.S.A." in gold. Single "butterfly" string tree. The neck is signed in pencil on the underside "Fred / [signature] / 19.28.2000" and on the end of the neck also in pencil "FS. 12.00". Four-bolt neck plate stamped "Marauder / NAMM Proto". Individual Fender [Japan] Deluxe tuners with oval metal buttons. Three  'Jaguar' pickups specially wound by Abigail Ybarra  with perfectly balanced outputs of 5.93k, 5.92k, and 5.89k respectively (from neck to bridge). Four-layer 'tortoiseshell' over white / black / white plastic pickguard with fifteen screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) and jack socket on lower metal plate adjoining pickguard on the treble side, circuit selector (rhythm/lead) slide switch and two roller controls (one volume, one tone) on upper metal plate adjoining pickguard on the bass side. Four pickup selector slide switches on metal plate inset into the pickguard on the treble side. These four, three-way pickup switches (one per pickup), allow on/off/on settings and circuit selection. It has two sets of volume/tone pots - rollers on top control plate (rhythm position) and traditional pots on the lower control plate (lead position). White plastic ribbed-side conical-shape "Witch Hat" control knobs. Fender Stratocaster style "Synchronized Tremolo" combined six-saddle bridge/tailpiece. Complete with the original tremolo arm and bridge cover. This guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition with just some very fine checking and a minor ding on the top (just by the top bass edge) and a few very minor and insignificant indentations on the back of the body. A fabulous example. Together with a letter of authenticity (dated February 6th, 2012) from Fred Stuart. Housed in the original 'gig bag' and also a Fender G&L tan tolex hardshell case with brown leather ends and orange plush lining (9.50).

The letter which is on Stuart Fine Custom Instruments headed paper and is dated February 6, 2012 states: "RE: 2001 Fender Custom Shop Marauder NAMM Prototype. This instrument was made for the 2001 winter NAMM, and is one of ten Marauder style guitars that I built from 1997 to 2001. Specs include: two-piece Alder body (which was finished in 1997), neck with an African Rosewood fingerboard (which was completed in 2000) and stock Jaguar pickups wound by Abigail Ybarra. The guitar is wired in stereo so that two separate "mixes" can be sent to two amps, or channels of an amp. This set of mixes can be reversed. The neck plate is stamped MARAUDER NAMM PROTO. Guitars that were taken to NAMM never had dedicated cases, only gig bags. As this guitar would require a custom case, (which never was allocated for it) it is delivered with a gig bag. The guitar has been in my personal collection from the time I left Fender. [signed] Fred Stuart."

The Fender Marauder guitar 'crept' into the electric guitar scene in 1965. This instrument was an unsuccessful attempt to make an electric solid body guitar with the pickups discreetly hidden underneath the pickguard. A certain Quilla H. Freeman had this idea to put four Jazzmaster (or Jaguar) pickups into a discreet place under the pickguard's surface. Bad luck! Few months later, there were lots of weak signals and buzzes from the pickups and this led to a dispute between Freeman and CBS about this ubiquitous patent, according to Forrest White, then electric guitar and amp production manager at CBS-owned Fender during that period. Apparently Fender made just one of each of the sunburst and the custom colors each fitted with four new style humbucking pickups (hidden beneath the pickguard). So only a handful of Marauders were produced. Each of Fender's divisional reps was given a Marauder 1 to show to prospective dealer clients and hopefully take orders. Unfortunately none of the reps managed to get a single order and it was decided that the 'humbucking' pickups were too expensive for mass-production or the technology itself was too expensive to license. So in 1966 the boffins at Fender attempted a second prototype, this time with three visible Jaguar pickups… Once again they made one of each color and off went the divisional sales reps in search of potential customers. 'Deja-Vu' - they were again unsuccessful, with not one single order being placed. The Marauder project sank soon afterwards, as neither model actually went into general production.

"After introducing the Jazzmaster in 1959 and the Jaguar in 1962, between 1965 and 1966, Fender prototyped the Marauder. There were two versions made: Type I, with four humbucking pickups hidden underneath the pickguard and Type II, with the pickups mounted in a more conventional fashion on the pickguard. The Type II variation has three pickups, with the bridge pickup slanted as upon a Stratocaster. It also has seven switches and four knobs. The thinking behind the model was to combine the ideas behind the Stratocaster and Jaguar guitars while adding some new features to increase versatility. The guitar never officially passed the prototype stage, allegedly because the hidden pickups of the Type I variation were either too expensive for mass-production or the technology itself was too expensive to license. It's perhaps the rarest Fender guitar ever made and it is said that only 8 Marauders were created (with 4 of these guitars sporting slanted frets on the fingerboard). Fender canceled the Marauder in 1966." (Wikipedia).